Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium

Beats A Medical Bracelet

 "I was born with a decent size hole in my heart and my parents were told that it would eventually go away with time. It didn't, and progressed into irregular beating and cardiac arhythmia.  Finally, when I was 18, my doctor noticed that the sound of my heart had changed and that she didn't think it was functioning the way it should be.  I went to a specialist and he determined that the AV node was blocked and that my heart was only beating half of what it should be. I got a pacemaker on December 23, 2003 when I was just 18. A couple years later, as a Christmas gift, my fiance paid for me to get the medical symbol for the pacemaker tattooed on my upper right wrist."

Origin of an Epidemic

Lea writes, "I am an evolutionary biology graduate student working with some of the world's earliest known HIV samples, trying to clarify the early evolutionary history of the virus.  I was inspired by an elegant circle tree phylogeny my PI put together for a publication submission and I decided I had finally found something I connected with enough to get permanently put on my body."

Carl: Typepad swallowed up this post last week for reasons unknown, so here it is again...

Shouldering The Risks

Steve writes, "I got my two tattoos the summer after I graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Chemical and Nuclear Engineering. On the left shoulder is the recognizable radiation warning trefoil, and on the right is the U.S. Army's hazard symbol for chemical weapons (I interpret it more as a general chemical warning symbol). Some would say that hazard symbols like these represent a desire to for isolation, but I like to think of them as my two pillars of training. That no matter what happens to me I'll always have my knowledge of these two sciences to rest upon."

Let Me Just Roll Up My Sleeves to Make Sure You're Not Dying

LTY writes, "The first is an ECG, single lead, called a rhythm strip, which shows a common and generally benign arrhythmia called second degree heart block, Mobitz Type I, also called Wenckebach. The interval between the P wave (atrial contraction) and the QRS (ventricular contraction) progressively increases till a QRS is dropped. The second is a three-lead ECG showing an acute inferior myocardial infarction, aka a heart attack."

Carl writes: When you stop to reflect on electrocardiograms, it is remarkable that we can peer within the heart simply by picking up tiny changes in voltage on the skin. The fact that muscles such as the heart use electricity to drive their contractions was inconceivable in the 1600s. Natural philosophers believed muscles might be inflated by "animal spirits," but the idea that the same power in a lightning bolt was at work in our hearts every second of our lives would have seemed absurd. Jan Swammerdam, a Dutch anatomist, tried to persuade his contemporaries in the 1660s that animal spirits did not drive the heart--he showed that a severed muscle twitched if he touched its nerve endings with the blade of a scalpel--but it would take well over a century for scientists to accept that our lives depend on a rhythm of sparks.

Contemplating The Skeletal Self

"Original art by Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy. Taken from Carl Sagan's The Dragons of Eden. As student of social science, I find the concept of man studying himself awesome."

Carl: A skeleton gazes at a skull, its hand draped lazily over the cranial vault. This image signifies more than just an anatomy lesson. Andreas Vesalius, the anatomist who drew it and many others, created a visual fault line that divided the ancient and the modern. Medieval European anatomists looked back to ancient authorities such as Galen for enlightenment. Anything they saw for themselves that did not seem to fit into the ancient systems must be their own errors, to be resolved by more careful reading of the Greeks and Romans. After all, God had given Adam perfect knowledge of nature, and human understanding had declined ever since his fall. Galen and the other classical writers were closer to creation, and thus further uphill on the downward slope of knowing.

Galen certainly was a brilliant anatomist, but his limitations were forgotten during the Dark Ages. He never even dissected a human cadaver, for example, contenting himself with pigs and other animals. It was not until the sixteenth century that someone noticed these shortcomings for what they were. Vesalius created an original anatomical guide, filled with drawings of his own, made from his own observations. He also helped spur a new approach to the human body (and the bodies of other animals): to challenge old beliefs and to learn with one's own eyes.

Some may see this image as a morbid reminder of death, a skinned "Alas poor Yorick." But I see it more as an embodiment of science, of one skull (and its resident brain) learning from another.

Original flickr source

Biohazard

"i send you my biohazard tattoo. obviously it's not about the band ^^ i'm a biology student and it represents my choice...." --Alesita

Vita Brevis...

"Here's my tattoo of a Latin Hippocrates quote. Translated it says "life is short, art is long".--Katie

Repaired Heart

"I am a nurse and here is my tattoo."